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Cypher: Adding a Node to a Linked List

This example shows how to add a node to the head of a linked list using Cypher.

Let’s assume we have a graph containing an indexed node that can act as the list’s owner. What we want to do is build up a linked list, with the head of the list attached to the owner node using a HEAD relationship. When a new node is added to the list, it becomes the head node. The HEAD relationship is detached from the old head node and attached to this new head node. At the same time, the new head node is linked to the old head node using a PREV relationship.

The diagram below shows a linked list comprising three nodes. The list is attached to an owner node named ‘my-list’.

To build the linked list shown above, we would execute this Cypher statement three times.

How it works

The START clause looks up the node representing the list’s owner in an index. The CREATE UNIQUE clause then creates a new node and links it to the owner using a HEAD relationship. The {newElement} parameter here allows us to pass a map of the new node’s properties to the query.

Having created the new head node, we then pipe it and the owner node to a second query using WITH.

In this second query we try to match the list owner, the new head node and the old head node (if there is one):

If we find an old head node, we delete its HEAD relationship, because it is no longer valid. We then create a PREV relationship that links the new head node to this old head node:

The MATCH clause here is similar to a pattern matching clause in a functional language: if Cypher can match the (newHead)<-[:HEAD]-(owner)-[oldRel:HEAD]->(oldHead) pattern in the graph, it will invoke the subsequent DELETE and CREATE clauses; otherwise it will terminate without deleting or creating any further relationships.

This example has been tested against Neo4j 1.8.1 and 1.9. The code for the example can be downloaded from here.